Họp Thông Thiên Học qua Skype ngày 24 tháng 1 năm 2015

[6:05:40 PM] *** Group call ***
[6:08:14 PM] Thuan Thi Do:
Life teaches us in two ways, by tuition that the world gives us, and by
intuition the working of the inner self. As men develop, their intuition
increases, and they do not depend so much as before on the instruction that
the world gives. That is another way of saying that the man who uses his
inner powers can learn much more from a little experience than other men can
from a great deal. Because of the activity of his innate intelligence, the
developed man is able to see the great significance of even small things; but
the undeveloped mind is full of curiosity. It is eager for novelty, because,
not being good at thinking, it soon exhausts the obvious significance of
commonplace things. This mind is the one that craves miracles in connection
with its religious experience, as it is blind to the countless miracles that
surround it all the time.

What we call the dictates of conscience come from above, and represent
usually the knowledge of the ego on the subject. But here a word of caution
is necessary. The ego himself is as yet but partially developed. His
knowledge on any given subject may be quite small, or even inaccurate, and he
can reason only from the information before him.

Because of this, a man's conscience often misleads him, for an ego who is
young, and knows but little, may yet be able to impress his will upon the
personality. But as a general rule the undeveloped ego is also undeveloped in
his power of impressing himself ( Page 219 ) upon his lower vehicles; and
perhaps this is just as well.

Sometimes however, as said, an ego, who lacks development in tolerance and
wide knowledge, may yet have a will sufficiently strong to impress upon his
physical brain orders which show that he is a very young ego, and does not
understand.

Hence, when conscience seems to dictate something which is clearly against
the great laws of mercy and truth and justice [as, possibly, was the case
with some of the inquisitors], the man should think carefully whether the
universal rule is not a greater thing than the particular application which
seems to conflict with it. The intellect should always be used in such a way
that it will be an instrument of the ego, not an obstacle in the path of his
development.

A curious example of the way in which an ego may manifest himself to the
personality is that described in The Mental Body, p.280. A certain orator
whilst speaking one sentence of a lecture, habitually sees the next sentence
actually materialise in the air before her, in three different forms, from
which she consciously selects that one which she thinks the best. This is
evidently the work of the ego, though it is a little difficult to see why he
takes that method of communication, instead of himself selecting the form he
thinks best, and impressing that form alone on the personal consciousness.

That which is known to mystics as the "Voice of the Silence" differs for
people at different stages. The voice of the silence for any one is that
which comes from the part of him which is higher than his consciousness can
reach, and, naturally that changes as his evolution progresses.

For those now working with the personality, the voice of the ego is the voice
of the silence, but when one has dominated the personality entirely, and has
made it one with the ego, so that the ego maywork perfectly through it, it is
the voice of Âtma. - the triple spirit on the nirvanic plane. When this is (
Page 220 ) reached, there will still be a voice of the silence—that of the
Monad. When the man identifies the ego and the Monad, and attains Adeptship,
he will still find a voice of the silence coming down to him from above, but
then it will be the voice, perhaps, of one of the Ministers of the Deity, one
of the Planetary Logoi. Perhaps for Him in turn it will be the voice of the
Solar Logos Himself. The "Voice of the Silence", therefore, from whatever
level it may come, is always essentially divine.

The ego works in the physical body through the two great divisions of the
nervous system - the sympathetic and the cerebrospinal. The sympathetic
system is connected mostly with the astral body, the cerebrospinal system
with the mental body, this system coming more and more under the influence of
the ego as he advances in intellectual power.

As the cerebrospinal system developed, the ego passed on to the sympathetic
system more and more of the parts of his consciousness, definitely
established, towards which he no longer needed to turn his attention, in
order to keep them in working order. It is possible, by the methods of Hatha
Yoga, for example for the ego to re-establish direct control over portions of
the sympathetic system: to do so, however, is obviously not a step forward,
but a step backward, in evolution.

The student should recollect that the ego is always striving upwards, trying
to get rid of the lower planes, endeavouring to throw off the burdens which
prevent his climbing. He does not want to be troubled, for example, with
looking after the vital functions of the body, and gives his attention to the
machinery only when anything goes wrong. As previously said, all such
workings are recoverable, but it is not worth while to do so. On the
contrary, the more we can hand over to that automatism, the better; for the
less we have to utilise the waking consciousness, for the things that are
constantly recurring, the more shall we have to work for the things that
really need attention, ( Page 221 ) and that are probably vastly more
important, at any rate from the point of view of the ego.

Occasionally a man may become dominated by a "fixed idea", this resulting in
some cases in madness, in other cases, in the unshakable devotion or
determination of the saint or the martyr. These two classes of cases have
diverse psychological origins, which we may now study.

A fixed idea that is madness is an idea which the ego has handed over to the
sympathetic system, so that it has become part of the "subconscious". It may
be a past mood or notion, that the ego has outgrown; or a forgotten fact,
suddenly reasserting itself, unaccompanied by its proper surroundings; or the
connection of two incongruous ideas; and so on.

There are countless such ideas, with which the ego has had to do in the past,
and which he has not entirely thrown out of the mechanism of consciousness so
that they have lingered there, though the ego himself has outgrown them. So
long as any part of the mechanism of consciousness can respond to them, for
so long those ideas may emerge above the horizon, or "threshold" of
consciousness.

When such an idea comes up, as it does, without reason, without rationality,
with the rush and surge and passionate strength of the past, it overbears the
subtler mechanism that the ego has evolved for his higher purposes. For
ideas,such as those we are considering, are stronger on the physical plane
than those we call the ordinary mental ideas, because, their vibrations being
slower and coarser, they produce more result in the denser matter. It is far
easier to affect the physical body, for example, by the surge of a barbaric
emotion, than by the subtle reasoning of a philosopher.

We may state, then, that the fixed idea of the madman is usually an idea
which has left its trace on the sympathetic system, and which, during some
disturbance or weakening of the cerebrospinal system, is able to assert
itself in consciousness. It arises from below. ( Page 222 )

The fixed idea of the saint or martyr, on the other hand, is a very different
thing. This comes down from the ego himself, who is striving to impress upon
the physical brain his own loftier emotion, his own wider knowledge. The ego,
who can see further on the higher planes than he can in the physical
encasement, tries to impress upon that physical encasement his own will, his
own desire for the higher and nobler. It comes with all-dominating..
[6:24:40 PM] Thuan Thi Do: The fixed idea of the saint or martyr, on the
other hand, is a very different thing. This comes down from the ego himself,
who is striving to impress upon the physical brain his own loftier emotion,
his own wider knowledge. The ego, who can see further on the higher planes
than he can in the physical encasement, tries to impress upon that physical
encasement his own will, his own desire for the higher and nobler. It comes
with all-dominating power; it cannot approve itself to the reason, for the
brain is not yet ready to reason on those lines of higher knowledge and of
deeper vision and intuition; but it comes down, with the force of the ego on
a body prepared for it, and thus asserts itself as the dominant power,
guiding the man to heroic action, to martyrdom, to saintship. Such fixed
ideas come, not, as in the previous class, from below, but from above; not
from the subconscious but from the super-conscious.
[6:46:34 PM] Thuan Thi Do:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_nervous_system
[6:49:13 PM] Thuan Thi Do:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sympathetic_nervous_system
[6:49:25 PM] Thuan Thi Do: As was said in The Mental Body, p. 279, we need
not shrink from the fact that there is frequently a psychological instability
associated with genius, as expressed in the saying that genius is akin to
madness, and in the statement of Lombroso and others that many of the saints
were neuropaths. The more delicate the machinery, the more easily may it be
overstrained, or thrown out of gear; hence it is sometimes true that the very
instability of the genius or the saint is the very condition of inspiration,
the normal brain being not yet sufficiently developed, nor delicate enough,
to answer to the subtle waves coming from the higher consciousness.

Thus those impulses, which we call the promptings of genius, come down from
the super-conscious, from the realm of the ego himself. Not only do these
inspirations from the higher consciousness sometimes cause brain instability,
but, as is well known, they are frequently accompanied by great irregularity
of moral conduct. The reason for this is interesting and important.

When any force comes down, from a higher to a lower plane, ( Page 223 ) it is
subject to transmutation in the vehicle into which it comes. According to the
nature of the vehicle will be the transmutation of the force,a portion of the
force being changed by the vehicle, into which it plays,

into the form of energy to which that vehicle lends itself most readily.

(angel) This shows the “Primordial Seven” using for their Vahan (vehicle, or
the manifested subject which becomes the symbol of the Power directing it),
Fohat, called in consequence, the “Messenger of their will” — the fiery
whirlwind.

“Dzyu becomes Fohat” — the expression itself shows it. Dzyu is the one real
(magical) knowledge, or Occult Wisdom; which, dealing with eternal truths and
primal causes, becomes almost omnipotence when applied in the right
direction. Its antithesis is Dzyu-mi, that which deals with illusions and
false appearances only, as in our exoteric modern sciences. In this case,
Dzyu is the expression of the collective Wisdom of the Dhyani-Buddhas.

(beer) As the reader is supposed not to be acquainted with the
Dhyani-Buddhas, it is as well to say at once that, according to the
Orientalists, there are five Dhyanis who are the “celestial” Buddhas, of whom
the human Buddhas are the manifestations in the world of form and matter.
Esoterically, however, the Dhyani-Buddhas are seven, of whom five only have
hitherto manifested,* and two are to come in the sixth and seventh
Root-races. They are, so to speak, the eternal prototypes of the Buddhas who
appear on this earth, each of whom has his particular divine prototype. So,
for instance, Amitabha is the Dhyani-Buddha of Gautama Sakyamuni, manifesting
through him whenever this great Soul incarnates on earth as He did in
Tzon-kha-pa.† As the synthesis of the seven Dhyani-Buddhas, Avalokiteswara
was the first Buddha (the Logos), so Amitabha is the inner “God” of Gautama,
who, in China, is called Amita(-Buddha). They are, as Mr. Rhys Davids

† The first and greatest Reformer who founded the “Yellow-Caps,” Gyalugpas.
He was born in the year 1355 a.d. in Amdo, and was the Avatar of Amitabha,
the celestial name of Gautama Buddha.

Vol. 1, Page 109 THEOGONY OF THE CREATORS.
correctly states, “the glorious counterparts in the mystic world, free from
the debasing conditions of this material life” of every earthly mortal Buddha
— the liberated Manushi-Buddhas appointed to govern the Earth in this Round.
They are the “Buddhas of Contemplation,” and are all Anupadaka (parentless),
i.e., self-born of divine essence. The exoteric teaching which says that
every Dhyani-Buddha has the faculty of creating from himself, an equally
celestial son — a Dhyani-Bodhisattva — who, after the decease of the Manushi
(human) Buddha, has to carry out the work of the latter, rests on the fact
that owing to the highest initiation performed by one overshadowed by the
“Spirit of Buddha” — (who is credited by the Orientalists with having created
the five Dhyani-Buddhas!), — a candidate becomes virtually a Bodhisattva,
created such by the High Initiator.

(coffee) Fohat, being one of the most, if not the most important character in
esoteric Cosmogony, should be minutely described. As in the oldest Grecian
Cosmogony, differing widely from the later mythology, Eros is the third
person in the primeval trinity: Chaos, Gaea, Eros: answering to the
Kabalistic En-Soph (for Chaos is Space, [[Chaino]], “void”) the Boundless
All, Shekinah and the Ancient of Days, or the Holy Ghost; so Fohat is one
thing in the yet unmanifested Universe and another in the phenomenal and
Cosmic World. In the latter, he is that Occult, electric, vital power, which,
under the Will of the Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms,
giving them the first impulse which becomes in time law. But in the
unmanifested Universe, Fohat is no more this, than Eros is the later
brilliant winged Cupid, or Love. Fohat has naught to do with Kosmos yet,
since Kosmos is not born, and the gods still sleep in the bosom of
“Father-Mother.” He is an abstract philosophical idea. He produces nothing
yet by himself; he is simply that potential creative power in virtue of whose
action the Noumenon of all future phenomena divides, so to speak, but to
reunite in a mystic supersensuous act, and emit the creative ray. When the
“Divine Son” breaks forth, then Fohat becomes the propelling force, the
active Power which causes the One to become Two and Three — on the Cosmic
plane of manifestation. The triple One differentiates into the many, and then
Fohat is transformed into that force which brings together the elemental
atoms and makes them aggregate and combine. We find an echo of this primeval
teaching

Vol. 1, Page 110 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
in early Greek mythology. Erebos and Nux are born out of Chaos, and, under
the action of Eros, give birth in their turn to AEther and Hemera, the light
of the superior and the light of the inferior or terrestrial regions.
Darkness generates light. See in the Puranas Brahma’s “Will” or desire to
create; and in the Phœnician Cosmogony of Sanchoniathon the doctrine that
Desire, [[pothos]], is the principle of creation.

Fohat is closely related to the “one life.” From the Unknown One, the
Infinite totality, the manifested one, or the periodical, Manvantaric Deity,
emanates; and this is the Universal Mind, which, separated from its
Fountain-Source, is the Demiurgos or the creative Logos of the Western
Kabalists, and the four-faced Brahma of the Hindu religion. In its totality,
viewed from the standpoint of manifested Divine Thought in the esoteric
doctrine, it represents the Hosts of the higher creative Dhyan Chohans.
Simultaneously with the evolution of the Universal Mind, the concealed Wisdom
of Adi-Buddha — the One Supreme and eternal — manifests itself as
Avalokiteshwara (or manifested Iswara), which is the Osiris of the Egyptians,
the Ahura-Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Heavenly Man of the Hermetic
philosopher, the Logos of the Platonists, and the Atman of the Vedantins.* By
the action of the manifested Wisdom, or Mahat, represented by these
innumerable centres of spiritual Energy in the Kosmos, the reflection of the
Universal Mind, which is Cosmic Ideation and the intellectual Force
accompanying such ideation, becomes objectively the Fohat of the Buddhist
esoteric philosopher. Fohat, running along the seven principles of Akasa,
acts upon manifested substance or the One Element, as declared above, and by
differentiating it into various centres of Energy, sets in motion the law of
Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to the Ideation of the Universal Mind,
brings into existence all the various states of being in the manifested Solar
System.

The Solar System, brought into existence by these agencies, consists of Seven
Principles, like everything else within these centres. Such is the teaching
of the trans-Himalayan Esotericism. Every philosophy, however, has its own
way of dividing these principles.

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* Mr. Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the Logos. (See
his four lectures on the “Bhagavadgita” in the Theosophist.)

Vol. 1, Page 111 THE PROTEAN SPIRIT-SUBSTANCE.
Fohat, then, is the personified electric vital power, the transcendental
binding Unity of all Cosmic Energies, on the unseen as on the manifested
planes, the action of which resembles — on an immense scale — that of a
living Force created by will, in those phenomena where the seemingly
subjective acts on the seemingly objective and propels it to action. Fohat is
not only the living..
[8:17:40 PM] Thuan Thi Do: Symbol and Container of that Force, but is looked
upon by the Occultists as an Entity — the forces he acts upon being cosmic,
human and terrestrial, and exercising their influence on all those planes
respectively. On the earthly plane his influence is felt in the magnetic and
active force generated by the strong desire of the magnetizer. On the Cosmic,
it is present in the constructive power that carries out, in the formation of
things — from the planetary system down to the glow-worm and simple daisy —
the plan in the mind of nature, or in the Divine Thought, with regard to the
development and growth of that special thing. He is, metaphysically, the
objectivised thought of the gods; the “Word made flesh,” on a lower scale,
and the messenger of Cosmic and human ideations: the active force in
Universal Life. In his secondary aspect, Fohat is the Solar Energy, the
electric vital fluid,* and the preserving fourth

Footnote(s)
* In 1882 the President of the Theosophical Society, Col. Olcott, was taken
to task for asserting in one of his lectures that Electricity is matter.
Such, nevertheless, is the teaching of the Occult Doctrine. “Force,”
“Energy,” may be a better name for it, so long as European Science knows so
little about its true nature; yet matter it is, as much as Ether is matter,
since it is as atomic, though several removes from the latter. It seems
ridiculous to argue that because a thing is imponderable to Science,
therefore it cannot be called matter. Electricity is “immaterial” in the
sense that its molecules are not subject to perception and experiment; yet it
may be — and Occultism says it is — atomic; therefore it is matter. But even
supposing it were unscientific to speak of it in such terms, once Electricity
is called in Science a source of Energy, Energy simply, and a Force — where
is that Force or that Energy which can be thought of without thinking of
matter? Maxwell, a mathematician and one of the greatest authorities upon
Electricity and its phenomena, said, years ago, that Electricity was matter,
not motion merely. “If we accept the hypothesis that the elementary
substances are composed of atoms we cannot avoid concluding that electricity
also, positive as well as negative, is divided into definite elementary
portions, which behave like atoms of electricity.” (Helmholtz, Faraday
Lecture, 1881). We will go further than that, and assert that Electricity is
not only Substance but that it is an emanation from an Entity, which is
neither God nor Devil, but one of the numberless Entities that rule and guide
our world according to the eternal Law of Karma. (See the Addendum to this
Book.)

Vol. 1, Page 112 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
principle, the animal Soul of Nature, so to say, or — Electricity. In India,
Fohat is connected with Vishnu and Surya in the early character of the
(first) God; for Vishnu is not a high god in the Rig Veda. The name Vishnu is
from the root vish, “to pervade,” and Fohat is called the “Pervader” and the
Manufacturer, because he shapes the atoms from crude material.* In the sacred
texts of the Rig Veda, Vishnu, also, is “a manifestation of the Solar
Energy,” and he is described as striding through the Seven regions of the
Universe in three steps, the Vedic God having little in common with the
Vishnu of later times. Therefore the two are identical in this particular
feature, and one is the copy of the other.

The “three and seven” strides refer to the Seven spheres inhabited by man, of
the esoteric Doctrine, as well as to the Seven regions of the Earth.
Notwithstanding the frequent objections made by would-be Orientalists, the
Seven Worlds or spheres of our planetary chain are distinctly referred to in
the exoteric Hindu scriptures. But how strangely all these numbers are
connected with like numbers in other Cosmogonies and with their symbols, can
be seen from comparisons and parallelisms made by students of old religions.
The “three strides of Vishnu” through the “seven regions of the Universe,” of
the Rig Veda, have been variously explained by commentators as meaning “fire,
lightning and the Sun” cosmically; and as having been taken in the Earth, the
atmosphere, and the sky; also as the “three steps” of the dwarf (Vishnu’s
incarnation), though more philosophically — and in the astronomical sense,
very correctly — they are explained by Aurnavabha as being the various
positions of the sun, rising, noon, and setting. Esoteric philosophy alone
explains it clearly, and the Zohar laid it down very philosophically and
comprehensively. It is said and plainly demonstrated therein that in the
beginning the Elohim (Elhim) were called Echod, “one,” or the “Deity is one
in many,” a very simple idea in a pantheistic conception (in its
philosophical sense, of course). Then came the change, “Jehovah is Elohim,”
thus unifying the multiplicity and taking the first step towards Monotheism.
Now to the query, “How is Jehovah Elohim?” the answer is, “By three Steps”
from below.

Footnote(s) ———————————————
* It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in vibration
assumes a series of regular curved figures of various descriptions. Can
Science give a complete explanation of this fact?
[8:22:51 PM] Thuan Thi Do: Gæa (Gr.). Primordial Matter, in the Cosmogony of
Hesiod; Earth, as some think; the wife of Ouranos, the sky or heavens. The
female personage of the primeval Trinity, composed of Ouranos, Gæa and Eros.
[8:55:29 PM] Thuan Thi Do:
http://www.sanctusgermanus.net/ebooks/
[9:27:30 PM] Thuan Thi Do: Ray six. The sixth Ray became dominant in Europe
after the spread of Christianity by missionaries like St. Paul in the first
century after Christ, leading to its eventual establishment as the state
religion of the later Roman empire. Christianity has continued as a central,
if often controversial, influence in Western culture to the present day.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the three Abrahamic religions, and all
three are strongly sixth Ray. That Ray is associated with devotion, often
equated with quiet contemplation, but it also includes obedience in all
forms. Abraham was obedient to God, even to a willingness to sacrifice his
own son on being commanded to do so. Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane
before his crucifixion, “O my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me: nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26.36). And
“Islam” means “submission.” Sixth Ray obedience includes also that of the
military, so it is not surprising that Jewish scripture is full of battles,
Christianity had its Crusades, and Islam was extended by military conquest.
[9:28:34 PM] Thuan Thi Do:
http://www.theosophyforward.com/theosophy/1320-western-history-in-the-light-of-the-seven-rays
[9:55:41 PM] *** Call ended, duration 3:49:54 ***